


a brush and a sycamore tree

by mimesere



Series: an unbreakable house [4]
Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Dodgy Theology, Fantasy Racism, M/M, Mysticism, Post-Canon, edtjelvar week 2021, flagrant misuse of pathfinder spells, is there a lot of backstory to this that we're just not getting into at this juncture? yes, religious ecstasy in a very literal sense
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-15 13:28:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29065074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mimesere/pseuds/mimesere
Summary: In which people are creative with the truth, Ed keeps making choices, and Tjelvar honestly just wants a beer and ten minutes to think about his life choices.
Relationships: Edward Keystone/Tjelvar Stornsnasson
Series: an unbreakable house [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2125800
Comments: 16
Kudos: 17
Collections: EdTjelvar Week 2021





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For EdTjelvar week 2021, Day 5: Mystery
> 
> Technically, [a sky underground](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29043654) is the companion to this piece.

It seemed to Ed that people mostly came out of the end of the world in one of about three ways. There were the people who acted like nothing happened at all whether they’d gone over all funny with the blue veins or not, there were the people like Tjelvar who’d come out the other end of the whole thing put together different than they’d been before, and then there were the people who’d come out of it looking for Ed didn’t know what, but he was pretty sure he didn’t like it. Ed wasn’t sure where he fit, but that wasn’t exactly new either.

Tjelvar said it wasn’t that people had come out of it wrong, exactly, but that all the things that mattered to them had been ripped away and filled in with something else and then that had been ripped away too and that people were more or less complete rubbish at finding things to fill in that hole. Ed hadn’t liked how he said that, matter of fact, the way he’d talk about disarming a trap or Roman history or French. 

The point was that there were a lot of people who had woken up on the other side of a bad time and decided that the thing to do was to cause more trouble for everyone else. And then that everyone else asked for help.

The other point was: Ed had sworn oaths. He’d sworn them and no one but him or Apollo could break them and he hadn’t and he didn’t think Apollo _could_ , but he hadn’t either. So when someone asked for Ed’s help, he gave it even if it meant that he had to sit through a long, strangely hot, and awful tasting dinner while a man who reminded Ed very much of his father went through a list of grievances that started with drunkenness and passed through what sounded like a village-wide orgy and ended with missing children. Possibly there’d been something about some kind of drugged wine in there too, but Ed had stopped paying attention to him in favor of trying to remember his table manners. 

His host -- Mr…Meier? -- cleared his throat and Ed looked up guiltily from his silverware, wishing, not for the first time that evening, that the dinner invitation had been extended to Tjelvar who actually spoke all the languages. But it hadn’t been, even though Ed had tried to insist and the secretary who’d brought the invitation had looked Tjelvar up and down, eyes lingering at his ears and tusks, before flushing red and stammering out something that Tjelvar answered back in the same language, crisp and smooth and with an expression of mild politeness that made the secretary turn a darker, more alarming red and leave quickly before Ed could offer to heal him. 

Tjelvar had sighed and gone to rummage through Ed’s bag, emerging with a satisfied hum and a small bottle filled with a faintly glowing blue potion. “You’re probably going to need this,” he’d said and tossed it at Ed. Tongues, the handwritten label said. _Lasts 15 minutes, to speak and understand a language_. The writing was Tjelvar’s and Ed had run his thumb over it, curious and faintly worried about what the whole thing meant.

It was in his pocket now and Ed thought about taking it and trying to question Mr. Meier and his wife, who hadn’t said anything since murmuring a greeting at the door. Or maybe the servants, who waited at the far edges of the dining room. They usually knew what was what.

“Right,” said Ed. “So. A traveling priest stole your children.”

“A priest of Dionysus,” said Mr. Meier like that by itself meant anything. “And my son, yes. Some of the other children as well.”

“What for?” Ed asked. 

Mr. Meier blinked at him. He looked about as confused as Ed felt. “What do Dionysians want with children?” 

In Ed’s experience, the cult of Dionysus wasn’t much involved with children at all and when they were, it was to talk a lot with them after something had happened that gave them nightmares and the like. “Nothing, usually,” he said. “That’s why I’m asking.”

*

Tjelvar was waiting for him and something that had gone tense across Ed’s shoulders relaxed to see him in their room. He’d tipped his chair back, balanced carefully on the back two legs, and was writing something down in the journal he kept. Ed eyed him, dubious about whether the chair could withstand that kind of thing. Tjelvar looked...at ease.

There was a covered plate on the small table beside him.

“Is that for me?” asked Ed, shedding the buff coat that usually sat under his breastplate. He hadn’t felt entirely right going to dinner in full armor and felt even worse leaving it off entirely, caught unhappily between early years learning to do the done thing until he wouldn’t shame the family and later very educational years learning not to die. He’d compromised on the coat. And then it had been awful hot in the Meier’s home, making his skin prickle with discomfort. It was unfair maybe but it had been so much like being at the family house that Ed had spent the whole time wanting to slouch and making himself sit upright instead and struggling to remember rules he’d put aside as being not needed anymore. The whole thing made his head ache. Ed hadn’t liked it at all.

“Mm. The cook downstairs asked where you’d gone and I said you’d been summoned up to the house. She gave me that and said you’d want it.” Tjelvar let the chair fall forward, then reached over and uncovered the plate. There was a dark rye bread and ham next to a small dish of mustard and some kind of sausage. 

Ed looked at the plate longingly, then at the pitcher of water and towels folded neatly on the washstand. He sighed and went to wash up. 

“What did you learn?” asked Tjelvar. 

“The same thing he told us at the temple,” Ed answered. He stripped off his shirt and started scrubbing himself down quickly. “Priest of Dionysus came through and led the rites for the spring wine thing, lots of revelry, lots of drinking, lots of…” Mr. Meier had called it something else, a sour twist to his mouth that made Ed want to drink something and revel. 

“I’m familiar with the festival,” Tjelvar said dryly. “It was...quite popular with certain sets at Oxford. I imagine it still is.”

Ed glanced over at him. Tjelvar was looking away, drumming his fingers on the table. He looked strange -- out of place, but not in a bad way, just...a way that didn’t fit in with the faded flowers on the wallpaper and plain furniture. He belonged outside, Ed thought; they both did. 

Tjelvar turned his head and caught Ed looking. Ed felt himself flush hot then cold again where the water was drying. Maybe it hadn’t been the house that had been off? Maybe it had just been Ed. He didn’t feel poorly, though. Tjelvar cleared his throat then bent to drag over Ed’s pack, pulling out clothes that had seen cleaner days. Ed heard the muffled clink of glass hitting glass and the potion in his pocket felt heavy. 

“Right,” said Ed, wringing out the cloth and picking up another one to dry off with. “Yeah. Lots of all that. And then it’s done, the priest’s gone, and so are some of the children.”

“He said that? Children?” asked Tjelvar. He tossed Ed a shirt, too long and a little too narrow through the shoulders to be Ed’s, but it was clean and dry and fit well enough when he put it on. He’d find somewhere to do the washing in the morning. 

“His son for sure. Some others. Why?” Ed sat carefully in the other chair. It creaked alarmingly but held and he reached for the plate, assembling a sandwich out of everything. He took a large bite and felt some of the nervy tension in his stomach start to ease.

“No one else I spoke to seems all that concerned,” said Tjelvar. “No one’s so much as mentioned it.”

The stories Tjelvar got from the cook, the owner of inn, her wife, and the good looking musician playing in the common room agreed with Mr. Meier and the priest of Zeus who’d talked Ed into listening on a few points. There definitely had been a priest of Dionysus who’d overseen the spring wine thing. They’d left early yesterday, after the festival ended. There’d been some funny taste to the wine that last night after all the plays and such. 

Tjelvar had asked for some of it but the cook had insisted it wasn’t fit for drinking and sent him upstairs with the food for Ed.

Where everything went a bit sideways was about the children. Mr. Meier had insisted that his son had been taken and the priest of Zeus had said the same thing. Tjelvar said that everyone else said no one was missing at all. It was a terrible muddle. 

“Someone’s lying,” Tjelvar said. “Clearly.”

Ed didn’t like Mr. Meier. It made him want to think he was the liar, which wasn’t fair to him. But none of it sat right, not the disapproving way he’d said Dionysus as if they didn’t do good work, or the way he hadn’t named his son. But none of that was _bad_ exactly. And he wasn’t evil. It wasn’t his fault he reminded Ed of his father or oldest brother. “My son,” his father would say; “My brother,” and they’d leave it there as if he didn’t matter except as a part of them.

Tjelvar moved around the room, sorting through their bags and separating out what they still had that was clean and presentable and stuffing the rest back into one of the packs to go wash. He was quick about it and the rhythm of it was familiar enough that Ed could close his eyes and track what he was doing.

“Yeah,” Ed agreed. “They want me to find the priest and bring them back here.”

“Not the children?” Tjelvar asked. The faint splash of water meant he was probably doing his own washing up. 

“Them too.” 

“Do they want the priest for the apparent kidnapping or the tainted wine?” The bed creaked. The side nearer the window, Ed thought. It put Ed between the door and Tjelvar as was right and proper. It had taken ages to get Tjelvar to agree to that.

“Bit of both, I think.” When Ed opened his eyes again, Tjelvar was looking at him expectantly. Ed propped his morningstar next to the bed, and lay himself down while Tjelvar went around turning down the lamps until it was dark. Into that close, quiet space, Ed said, “I don’t like it here.”

The bed dipped next to him and the blanket shifted as Tjelvar pulled it over himself. “We can always leave.” He said it easily, like it could ever be enough if Ed was just himself and not a paladin. 

He offered it every time Ed let his doubts out and every time, it made Ed feel steadier, more sure that he didn’t want to. If he was allowed to go, then staying was all right too. Something he wanted even if it was all a tangle. “No, I can’t. I promised.”

“Right. We’ll just have to figure it out, then.”

Tjelvar made it sound so easy. “What’s the word for the things you do while you’re drunk?”

“Stupid,” said Tjelvar.

Ed laughed and turned on his side to face the door. “The other one. Like archery.”

“Like arch--debauchery?”

Ed nodded. “Mr. Meier said there was a lot of it during the festival and looked well angry about it. I thought it might be one of those things, you know. Like the cult of Zeus goes on about not liking but everyone else just gets on with because it’s fun.”

“That is certainly one word for it, yes.”

“We should try it.”

Tjelvar sputtered but when he spoke, he sounded like he was trying not to laugh. “Go to sleep, Edward.”

Ed smiled into the dark and fell asleep to the sound of Tjelvar’s breathing.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which conversations are had and tea is drunk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For EdTjelvar week 2021, day 6: Heal

They got a later start than Ed wanted the next morning. There was the washing up to do and breakfast, which Mrs. Blom, the cook, insisted on and then said something to Tjelvar that made him duck his head and he said something back, halting and careful in something not French or English. It didn’t sound like anything Ed knew, but it made Mrs. Blom’s face go soft and she smiled broadly around her tusks and patted him on the cheek before shooing him into a chair at the large table in the kitchen. 

“We do have to go,” Ed whispered. “We’re a day behind already.”

“She says you need feeding,” Tjelvar said. Ed didn’t think that was all she said but Tjelvar wasn’t saying and was sitting down like he had no intention of going anywhere. He looked up at Ed and his mouth went down at one side. “You do.”

Self-conscious, Ed tugged the edges of his sleeves down further over his hands. “I _am_ fine,” he said.

Tjelvar nudged the chair beside him out enough to make it clear Ed was to sit. “Indulge me.”

Ed sat. Mrs. Blom brought out more ham, a fancy looking bread, butter and some cheese, looked at Ed thoughtfully, then set about cooking some eggs.

Tjelvar had already started putting together half a sandwich, so Ed copied him. There was tea, not at all bitter but Ed added honey anyway. 

Mrs. Blom sat down next to Tjelvar and picked up her own tea. She asked him something in a mix of French and that other language and he answered, tripping over the words that Ed didn’t recognize. He didn’t recognize most of them, but he had a good idea of what French sounded like and it wasn’t that.

Ed made it through two more of those half sandwiches before they were done talking and she was looking at him again. She asked something and Tjelvar definitely said Apollo, so Ed tried paying more attention for a minute before giving it up again. She left then and Tjelvar pushed his plate aside to lean forward, folding his arms across the table. 

Ed pushed the plate back. There was still food on it. Tjelvar hadn’t been caught up in the haunt like Ed had, but he hadn’t taken care of himself either and the habit lingered.

Tjelvar huffed impatiently but got back to eating and Ed finished his plate. 

“She’s getting us the wine,” Tjelvar said. There was a funny tone to his voice, like he’d gotten bad news and was trying to hide it.

Ed knocked his foot against Tjelvar’s under the table. “I thought it wasn’t fit to drink?”

Tjelvar shrugged. “I don’t think it’s improved enough to change her mind.”

“So what did?”

“She saw us,” Tjelvar said. 

“Yes?” said Ed. “We’re not exactly invisible?”

Tjelvar smiled but not a really real one. “Before we got here.”

“What, from the road?”

“In her dreams.”

Ah, well. That explained the bad news tone. “That’s good, right? Is it? Were we nice?” Tjelvar smiled again like he couldn’t help himself. This one was real enough even if it didn’t linger and Ed sat back, pleased. Mrs. Blom came back then and Ed smiled at her. “Were we nice?” he asked her before remembering that she didn’t speak English and he didn’t speak French.

Tjelvar translated and she shook her head but didn’t say no. Ed did know that one.

“We did something good,” Tjelvar said.

That was probably more important, Ed thought, and smiled at her again. She set a cup in front of them that smelled like wine and lemons and something bad that Ed couldn’t place. 

Tjelvar made a face but picked it up and smelled it. “Hm.”

“Is it bad? Poisoned or something?” 

“No, nothing like that. If I don’t wake up in an hour or so, make me. You should be able to.” And then he drank the cup before either Ed or Mrs. Blom could stop him. “Ugh, that’s vile,” he said and slumped forward onto the table, just missing his plate. 

Mrs. Blom let out a cry and rushed forward at the same time that Ed shot to his feet. Tjelvar didn’t wake up when they shook him but he was breathing and nothing stranger was happening. He was just...not waking up. Mrs. Blom said something and Ed shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re saying, I’m sorry. I don’t--”

_To speak and understand a language._

Ed dug through his pack and found the bottle again and several others besides, different colors and with different labels, all in Tjelvar’s neat hand. He’d ask about them later; now he was only glad he hadn’t taken the potion earlier. He drank. It tasted like licorice and flowers. “Do you understand me now?”

“Is he all right?” she asked first thing. He’d already liked her because Tjelvar did and he didn’t like hardly anyone, but that made him like her more.

“I think so,” he said. “He’s breathing all right, anyway. And he said to give him an hour.”

“Why did he do that?” she asked. She seemed to be turning the corner from worried into irritated, the green of her skin darkening over her cheeks and the tips of her ears. “That was a foolish thing to have done!”

It was hard to defend Tjelvar’s decision when Ed agreed, but he felt obligated. “You all drank it?”

“Yes?”

“And everyone woke up fine?”

“Yes,” she said and sat down in her chair. “Just the dreams.”

Logic, Ed thought. He’d have to ask if that was what Tjelvar had thought before he drank it. Everyone else drank the wine, everyone else woke up, so Tjelvar would. Simple. “Dreams?” Ed asked. He moved the plate then rolled up one of their newly cleaned shirts and put it under Tjelvar’s head. “You saw us.”

“There was a light,” she said. “And the two of you. It felt good? As if something had gone well.”

“Oh. That’s nice.”

She looked at him doubtfully. “Do you know what it means?”

“No idea,” he said truthfully. “But going well is better than not, yeah?”

They sat together and watched Tjelvar sleep. Ed asked about the town, which she liked, and the inn, which she also liked well enough. She’d laughed as she said that and when Ed asked, she said, “My daughter married the owner’s daughter. I am obligated to say I like it or I'll hear about it for days.”

“Do you actually like it though?”

“I do.” She looked around and Ed thought she wasn’t looking at the room at all. “It’s home. And you? Is your young man taking you home?”

Ed blinked at her. “What?”

“Further north, I think. His accent’s from up there.”

The taste of the potion faded slowly and he lost words as it did until it was gone entirely. Tjelvar stirred not long after that, pushing himself up from the table with a groan. Mrs. Blom didn’t wait at all to lay into him for giving them a fright. Ed didn’t know what she was saying at all but he recognized the cadence of it, having sat through more than one of the same in the estate kitchen.

When she was done and Tjelvar had apologized, he looked at Ed. “Well?”

“I’m very cross with you.” Ed laid a hand over Tjelvar’s wrist and thought _please_ , though if he was asking Tjelvar or Apollo, he couldn’t say. Apollo answered anyway and for a few moments the kitchen was bathed in light. The general aches and soreness from walking for ages and ages and the lingering upset in Ed’s stomach from dinner the night before washed away under it and Tjelvar made a small sound but stayed still under Ed’s hand. 

Tjelvar cleared his throat. “It’s not poison,” he said.

Ed scowled at him. “You were unconscious!” 

“Yes, all right, but it’s not poison. Though I do suspect everyone felt wretched the next day.”

“What is it, then?” Ed asked.

Tjelvar reached over and grabbed Ed’s tea, wrinkling his nose as he drank. “Dreamtime tea.”

“Get your own if you’re going to be snobby about it.” Ed took it back and frowned at the nothing that was left. “What’s dreamtime tea?”

“A seer’s drink,” said Tjelvar. “It gives you true dreams. Or it can, anyway.”

“What did you see?” Ed asked.

Tjelvar stayed silent long enough that Ed thought he wasn’t going to answer. “I saw you.”

* * *

They’d made good time out of the town, following the trail the priest left. Ed was no tracker and Tjelvar was all right at it, but mostly they were relying on the fact that it didn’t look like the priest and their companions were trying to hide at all. 

“I don’t understand,” said Ed. “Why drug the whole town to see the future?”

Tjelvar shrugged, barely visible through the light rain. He moved very quietly for someone as big as he was, somehow avoiding all the little twigs and crackling piles of brush that Ed managed to find with every step. “I’m sure they had some reason,” he said. 

“And the people who left?” Definitely not children, said Mrs. Blom. Just people who wanted to get away, including the Meier boy. Man. Hugo.

“I’m sure they had some reason, too.”

It wasn’t as if Ed had a problem with people leaving. He’d done that in Cairo when he’d broken with the cult; that they’d broken with him first didn’t make it feel any less like he’d run away. It was just...it wasn’t any less a muddle for all that they’d figured out there wasn’t a kidnapping. 

Tjelvar glanced back and there was enough light from the ioun torch floating between them for Ed to see where drops of water had settled onto his hair. Ed couldn’t seem to stop himself noticing that kind of thing. “Have you decided what you’re going to do?”

“No.” Ed sighed heavily. “I don’t even know that there’s anything I should do. You said it was only a chance at true dreaming.”

“Seven different people including a priest of Zeus all had dreams about you,” said Tjelvar, practical as ever. “Whether they needed you specifically or if you were conveniently the nearest person with the requisite skills is a much more interesting conversation to have, but you’d need a philosopher to have a proper argument over it. I could give it a go if you’re interested but it’s not exactly my area of expertise.”

“What?” asked Ed, lost.

Tjelvar paused again, looking back. “What what?” 

“It doesn’t have to be me?”

“Ah,” said Tjelvar. He went quiet for a moment in a way that Ed learned meant he was organizing his thoughts. “I suspect it’s rather a moot point now because you’re the one who’s here, but why you at all is a something of a question of fate and coincidence.”

Ed felt himself relax. He kept waiting for Tjelvar to tell him it wasn’t important or that he should never mind and that hadn’t happened in ages. 

“Was it actually a coincidence? Were you directed? If you were directed, when did that start?”

“We got lost,” Ed pointed out. “We didn’t have directions.” The trip was your idea, he didn’t say. 

“Were we supposed to get lost?” asked Tjelvar. 

Ed could feel himself losing his grasp on the conversation. “I don’t think anyone gets lost on purpose.”

Tjelvar made a thoughtful noise. “We didn’t, no. But it’s possible that we got lost because it served some purpose that we be here now. It’s also possible that we did get lost and this is all a very convenient coincidence.”

“Well, which one is it?” asked Ed.

Tjelvar laughed. “There have been any number of people who’ve spent their entire lives trying to answer that.”

Ed looked down at his feet, taking some care to place his feet exactly where Tjelvar had already stepped. “Why?”

“Why answer the question?” asked Tjelvar. “Or why ask it at all?”

“Either. Both.” Ed couldn’t see that it mattered much. You just got on with what you could do and the rest would sort itself or it wouldn’t. “I don’t see how it matters.”

“It matters very much to some people,” said Tjelvar. He stopped and tilted his head. “Do you hear that?”

Ed couldn’t hear much of anything past the sounds of his own breathing and his heart beating low and steady in his ears. “I don’t hear anything.”

“A drum,” said Tjelvar. He looked at Ed and frowned. “Eddie. You really don’t hear it?” He really didn’t but he listened again. He started shaking his head when Tjelvar put his hands over Ed’s ears. Reflexively, Ed started to pull away before remembering that Tjelvar was allowed. And Tjelvar was frowning deeper, mouth twisting in irritation as he shook his head and leaned forward, lifting one hand to ask, very close to Ed’s ear, “Do you feel any different when you can’t hear?” before he covered it again.

Ed took stock. He felt much the same as he always did, with the new exception of being intensely aware of how very close Tjelvar was. His hands were cool where they pressed against Ed’s skin or maybe it’s just that Ed was really warm even though it was cold out. The low rumble of being alone in his head was nice, too. Ed shook his head, careful, not wanting to move Tjelvar’s hands. 

They moved anyway, coming down to rest on his shoulders lightly. “Tell me if you do feel anything strange?”

“Right, yeah,” said Ed. His ears and cheeks felt hot. “Promise.”

Tjelvar went quiet after that, moving slower along the barely there path through the hills and looking back to where Ed was following him more often. Ed didn’t know how to make it feel easy again and was surprised by how much he wanted to. He’d learned a long, long time ago that conversation wasn’t something he was good at and had stopped trying. But he wanted to know if the difference between fate and coincidence mattered to Tjelvar. He wanted to know if it mattered to himself, even, if he just asked himself the question a different way. 

Instead he thought about what he was supposed to do about the whole priest situation. He hadn’t gotten to any kind of decision when Tjelvar stopped him with a low voiced, “Ed,” and an arm across his chest. 

Ed couldn’t help but hear the drum then. It pounded away, a deep, steady thump that felt like it was coming from his bones. He and Tjelvar were a little bit away from a clearing in the trees that was filled with people dancing. There was something funny about their eyes, like they weren’t seeing anything in front of them and they whirled and spun and stamped their feet to music he still couldn’t hear. It smelled very strongly of wine and honey and beer. Next to the drummer there was a priest in a purple robe with their arms upraised, calling out in what Ed thought was Greek. Even on the edges of it, the air felt heavy. It prickled against Ed’s skin, tight and hot enough that he looked for a fire. 

“Oh. Oh, we’re not supposed to be seeing this,” he said and closed his eyes. He reached up to grab Tjelvar’s arm, still braced across Ed’s chest. “Tjelvar, this isn’t--we’re not--”

“Yes, fine,” Tjelvar said and let himself be pulled around. There was a very loud crack under their feet and later Ed would wonder which one of them put their feet wrong, if it was an accident or if they were supposed to have interrupted, not that it really mattered then or later. What did matter was the ringing silence that followed. He held his breath, listening as hard as he could. 

Ed gave Tjelvar’s arm a pat he hoped was reassuring and let it go. “Er. Sorry. Hello.” Nothing. Not even the sounds Ed half expected from the woods at night. “We just want to talk?”

“No one sends a paladin of Apollo to talk,” said a voice, much, much closer than Ed was expecting. He opened his eyes and the priest was right there, close enough to touch. The hot, heavy feeling popped like a soap bubble and the chill of an early spring night rushed in.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which they meet a priest and ed reaches out to touch faith.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For EdTjelvar Week 2021, day 7: Past (and a little future and a little belonging. and maybe a little violet.)

The priest was tall enough to look Ed in the eyes straight on and there was a crown of leaves tangled in their dark hair. They didn’t have any armor on, just those deep purple robes and a sturdy looking staff with a pine cone at the top. 

The clearing behind them was empty. 

“We did come to talk, though,” Ed said. They weren’t wrong about the Apollo thing was the problem. There were better cults and better paladins to send if what someone wanted was a conversation. Ed was just the one who’d been available.

“All right,” the priest said. They eased themselves down to the ground with their staff and looked up at Ed expectantly. He’d forgotten that the Dionysus lot liked being outside even when it was cold and wet. They were a lot like the Cult of Artemis that way. He sat down and hoped very hard that he wouldn’t have to get up again quickly. Tjelvar frowned at the both of them but knelt after Ed. The priest smiled. Or something like smiled, anyway. “I’m listening.”

“Right. So.” Ed glanced at Tjelvar who was watching the priest. “I’m Ed. Hello. I’m--the town sent me. Some of them, anyway.”

“To talk,” said the priest. They hadn’t introduced themselves and it left Ed casting about for the next thing to say. 

Ed grimaced. “I want to,” he said. It was true and no one had said he shouldn’t. 

“Really?” they asked, like they knew Ed wasn’t being entirely truthful. “No orders to bring me and the others back?”

“They do want me to do that, yeah. I don’t know that I should.”

They blinked at that. “I almost certainly did whatever it is that they’re accusing me of.”

“Well I know that,” Ed said. “Except the temple priest--”

“Alwin,” Tjelvar murmured.

“Right, him, and the one with the big house, Mr. Meier, they told me you took some children only no one else agrees. And I don’t know why you’d take children, they aren’t good at traveling and they aren’t allowed to choose at the temple yet, and you didn’t that I could see, not children like they meant. I don’t like that they didn’t just say even though I’d already promised to help.” Ed took a deep breath and let it out again. He hadn’t realized he’d been so angry that they’d been all twisty with the truth, even if they’d stopped short of lying. “They’re also mad about the, er, the--”

“Debauchery,” said Tjelvar helpfully and Ed still didn’t know rightly what that all included but he was definitely going to try it now.

“Thanks, yeah, that. And the wine. Why did you give them funny wine? I don’t understand.”

The priest looked very much like Ed had knocked them down. “They brew beer here,” the priest said slowly. “Or did. And their crops are blighted. Have been for years, even before the...unpleasantness.” Their mouth thinned and they got the same kind of grim, far away look Tjelvar got sometimes. “They wanted to know what to do, so I gave them a bit of a nudge. At least some of them should have seen a reasonably likely outcome.”

It sounded very reasonable to Ed except--

“It’s a curse, then?” asked Ed. They nodded. “Why didn’t you lift it?”

They shrugged. “I’m no cursebreaker. And I had other obligations.” 

Almost every traveling priest was a cleric and all clerics could remove a curse. Ed could remove a curse most of the time and he was rubbish at magic. Carter and Tjelvar had talked about it like they’d done it, but Ed couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen either of them doing magic so he thought maybe he’d misunderstood.

“You’re not a cleric,” Ed said. They shook their head and smiled at him. “And not a paladin.”

“What need does Dionysus have for paladins?” They shook their head again and leaned forward. Their eyes were very warm brown like fallen leaves and they looked at him like they could hear every single thing he was thinking. “What am I, Edward Keystone?” 

Ed shut his mouth. Tjelvar had met the Pythia in Cairo. She’d healed him, even. But she hadn’t told him who she was because he wasn’t an initiate and Ed had sworn before he’d gone to Rome that he wouldn’t tell anyone about the mysteries. 

“Eddie?” asked Tjelvar.

“I can’t say,” said Ed miserably. He was terrible at keeping secrets.

Tjelvar looked at him, then at the oracle of Dionysus, who was still smiling at Ed like he’d passed a test unexpectedly. “I see,” Tjelvar said slowly. Ed thought maybe he really did. He was clever like that. “You gave the town dreamtime tea so they’d know what to do next.”

The oracle spread their arms out expansively. “I gave them a chance. Dionysus alone knows what they all saw; I certainly don’t. When did you arrive?” 

Tjelvar “Yesterday.” 

They laughed but Ed didn’t think they actually thought it was funny. “And I gave them the tea the night before. What a marvelous coincidence.”

Coincidence, thought Ed. Fate? “We got lost,” Ed said to Tjelvar. He felt lost. “We didn’t mean to come here at all.” Part of him wished that they could have gone south to Cairo instead. They could have visited the professors and the Tahans and there were places Tjelvar had mentioned that sounded interesting. When they were done, Ed promised himself, they’d go somewhere sunny and hot and with something dangerous to do that would make Tjelvar light up. Instead, all they had was cold and a mystery and people who needed help but wouldn’t tell him what to do. 

“You’re here now, though,” said the oracle. “Does it matter why?”

That was true enough. “All right,” he said sitting up straighter. He was increasingly sure he wouldn’t have to fight a priest like he’d worried about and it seemed like they’d gotten most of the talking done, all of which was a relief. “What do I need to do?”

Beside him, Tjelvar sighed heavily and the oracle laughed. “Find the center of it all and remove the curse,” the oracle said. “The first part, I can help with.”

“I don’t want the tea.” It smelled awful. He couldn’t imagine drinking it. “Other than that, yeah, all right,” he said. Tjelvar made a sound like an annoyed cat and Ed turned to look at him. “What?”

“Details, Edward. Get them before agreeing to things.” 

The oracle held up their hand and said, “I swear on my honor as a priest of Dionysus that I intend you no harm.” 

Tjelvar snorted, unimpressed. “There is a frankly enormous gap between intent and outcome.”

“Do you trust Apollo?” they asked.

“Yes,” Ed answered immediately. Tjelvar was silent. Ed turned to look and found that Tjelvar was studying him carefully.

Finally Tjelvar said, “As much as I have to.”

The oracle was looking at Tjelvar now with interest and Ed wasn’t entirely sure he liked it. For that matter, he wasn’t sure Tjelvar liked it either by the way he went tense and silent and narrowed his eyes at them. “I’m just going to bring him closer to his god,” they said. “I trust Apollo will do the rest. He’s not the sort to leave curses laying about.”

Sitting on the ground meant that Ed didn’t have a lot of room to maneuver and none at all to be subtle about it, but he shifted around until he was between the oracle and Tjelvar and then both of them were looking at him instead of each other. “What do I do?” asked Ed. He patted Tjelvar on the leg and tried a smile when Tjelvar sighed again.

“Make yourself comfortable,” said the oracle and he leaned back, sure that Tjelvar was there. They got up onto their knees and put two fingers against Ed’s forehead. All the humor had gone out of their face and they looked solemn. “Ready?”

Kneeling over him, they seemed very large. Or maybe it was just that he felt small again like he hadn’t in years. “Is this going to hurt?” he asked. It wasn’t that he was afraid of it hurting; part of training to be a paladin was about pain and fear and not letting those things get in the way of what they wanted to do. It was just that it was easier to do that when he knew it was coming. And probably this was what Tjelvar meant about details.

“The opposite,” the oracle said. “It helps if you don’t fight it.” 

Ed blinked at them and they said something he didn’t understand.

It _was_ the opposite of hurt, in that it was like every good thing he’d ever felt slammed into him all at once. But it was also very much like hurtling off something very, very high and knowing the ground was waiting to meet him 

Everything went white.

* * *

The sun is far, far overhead in a sky so blue it hurts to look at. The grass is the same; he can see every blade of it, sharp edged and distinct. His shadow lays over it, barely there and soft at the edges and that’s wrong, he thinks, but doesn’t know why. 

He doesn’t know why he’s barefoot, either. Or bare...kneed? The last time he’d worn anything like a chiton was when he’d been an initiate and one of the priests had cut his hair. He reaches up and is comforted to feel his hair the way he likes it instead of how long it had gotten while he’d been training.

Ed wiggles his toes. The grass is soft and cool under his feet, even if it still looks sharp enough to cut. There are tall blue and purple flowers everywhere. A snake striped in black and gray darts away from him and he feels terrible about disturbing it. It twines around a staff in front of him like some of the more powerful clerics carry around. Next to it is a bow and a lyre and a tree branch and Ed is no good at learning things, but he knows the important bits, like what the symbols of his god are. 

Of all the things he can choose from, the bow is the thing he’s best with and that’s only if it counts that he can hit the target dead on as long as he takes his time. He goes to pick it up anyway because he doesn’t know what else to do and then he’s holding a morningstar and he knows that he always has been. 

“Er. Hello?” he says. A breeze kicks up around him, ruffling the edges of the skirt bit. “I’m Ed. Edward. But you, uh. You know that. Probably. I’m looking for a curse. Er. No, wait. There is already a curse and I need to find it.” There’s no answer from anywhere. He looks around at the field and the flowers. He worries that this is one of those story things like at Hannibal’s tomb and there’s something he’s supposed to know or do. He sits down finally and the snake slithers over to him, its tongue flicking in and out. Ed puts down a hand for it and it winds around and up his arm. He strokes a finger over its head. 

He looks up at the sky again, squinting against the brightness of the sun. “Thank you for not going away when I--” Honesty, he tells himself. He’s not supposed to lie, even to himself. “When I ran away. That would have been awful.” 

It gets brighter somehow and Ed closes his eyes. It doesn’t help. “I hope I’m doing all right,” he says.

* * *

Ed dragged in a breath and blinked away blurriness to see Tjelvar upside down and frowning at him. He couldn’t make it make sense and he flailed and felt himself caught, grounded by the firm clasp of Tjelvar’s hand around his own.

“He’s got a bit to go,” said the oracle, not unkindly, as everything went blinding and bright again.

* * *

The first time Ed heals someone else on purpose, he asks Apollo for the help because that’s what they’re supposed to do and then everything gets very bright and he loses track of himself a bit. It only lasts a few seconds and he doesn’t even heal the person he was trying to heal and gets their trainer instead, who’d taken a hard hit to the leg when someone -- not Ed this time -- had lost their grip on their morningstar while sparring. 

It doesn’t usually take him like that after the first few times which is good, because it takes hours to shake off the feeling of wearing something too tight and he’s clumsy with it, like trying to fight someone while dressed for a party instead of sensibly in armor. 

Here and now, there’s light and music and heat and it washes up and over the edges of himself. It’s nice, it’s a lot but it’s lovely, and very, very strange to not know where he ends. Or if he ends at all. 

Far away, a small memory surfaces of an old woman visiting the estate when he was young, and she explained something about rice pudding and jam, stirring and unstirring but nothing she did could make it go back to being different things, but even that washes away under the steady affection and satisfaction around him.

The only place that feels like his own is his hand, which still feels like a hand because it’s being held tightly.

* * *

Ed couldn’t see past the blurriness anymore, just spangled colors in the vague shape of Tjelvar, but he’d know that tone anywhere, spiky and impatient, all edges. Tjelvar would cut himself a thousand times on his own sharpness if Ed let him.

“It doesn’t need to be like that,” the oracle said. They sounded sad and Ed wanted to say something, but words were far away and he wasn’t sure how to make them work anyway. “It’s supposed to be a joy.”

Tjelvar’s hand tightened around Ed’s and Ed tried and failed to remember how his body worked long enough to squeeze back. “It was the single worst experience of my life and I would do almost anything to ensure it never happened again.”

_I won’t let it_ , thought Ed, not liking the flat, heavy tone of Tjelvar’s voice. _Whatever it is._ And he was gone again.

* * *

He falls through the light for what feels like forever.

Just falls

_Mr. Barnes tells them about what he did because they have to tell a truth and it has to be a big one and a secret one to get through the door and Mr. Carter sort of laughs and then covers his own mouth and winces when Mr. Barnes gives him such a look. Mr. Barnes doesn’t look like he’s sorry about it at all, not about any of it, and Ed wouldn’t be sorry about it either and he tells him so later and that Mr. Barnes is a good one, which he definitely is, Ed checked, and they talk and it’s very nice and Mr. Barnes sounds like every good memory Ed has of home._

and falls

_He heals the leopard even though it makes Sir Bertrand and Tjelvar mad. He has terrible dreams about what Sir Bertrand did with the corpse after and how completely Ed failed to recognize a not very good person when one’s in front of him until it’s too late to stop him being awful._

through bright nothingness 

_Eva knocks him down over and over again and laughs when he kicks her legs out from under her and they lay there panting with exhaustion until she put a hand on his chest and says “Keystone, I’m going to kiss you now” and he likes that she tells him plainly instead of saying things that don’t make any sense and expecting him to figure it out so he says all right and she does and he doesn’t mind it all when she pulls him back to the guest room she’d been given as a visiting paladin and he very much likes everything that comes after._

into the purples and pinks 

_Ishak’s hidden himself away in one of the smaller, wilder gardens. The only reason Ed finds him is because one of his dancing lights keeps popping out of the plants Ishak’s coaxed into a hideout. Ed sits down on a sunwarmed rock and waits for Ishak to tell him to go away, which he does, and when Ed says, “I thought maybe you could help me with a spell?” Ishak’s head pokes through the plants and he looks at Ed suspiciously. He comes out though and tells Ed all about the school of abjuration while Ed tries desperately to keep up. They can both cast a protective circle by the time Saira finds them and Ishak’s back to smiling and talking nineteen to the dozen, so Ed counts it an afternoon well spent._

and golds of sunrise

_The note in the pack Professor Einstein hands him just says good luck and it’s not signed or nothing but he recognizes Professor Curie’s writing and he feels better knowing she’s not angry at him for leaving._

and it all gets brighter and realer and not like the nothingness of before

_when Ed goes, he doesn’t look at the morningstar and tabard and breastplate he’s leaving behind. They’re just things and they don’t matter as long as he’s doing his best and he hopes very much that Apollo still wants him even if the cult doesn’t._

until everything is light and warm and so big he can’t tell where it all ends.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which tjelvar's day just gets worse and breakfast is had.

Ed jerked into awareness of cold and damp and dark and too small and--

“Breathe, Eddie,” Tjelvar said into his ear. The order filtered through the noise in his head along with a firm, grounding squeeze of his hand and around his chest. “I have you.”

Ed breathed. His face felt cold and wet and far away and he couldn’t _see_. Then there were fingers on his cheeks, also cold, not familiar, and he pulled back as far as he could, which was nowhere at all before he hit something behind him, and turned his head.

“Don’t,” said Tjelvar and for a horrible moment, Ed thought it was at him, but the fingers pulled away and Ed relaxed. Behind him, he felt Tjelvar’s chest rising and falling, slower and all out of rhythm with Ed’s. He closed his eyes and tried to slow down to match it. Ed felt another squeeze and Tjelvar sounded approving when he said, “Good. Exactly right.”

“Is he all right?” asked not-Tjelvar. The oracle.

“M’fine,” Ed mumbled. He was so tired of people talking about him when he was right there. He reached up, or tried to anyway before he remembered that Tjelvar was holding his hand. He told himself to sit up and couldn’t make himself move. He did make himself open his eyes again and it was a little better. Enough that he could make out the oracle, still kneeling over him. 

“May I?” They gestured toward him. And when he nodded, they took a fold of their robe and dabbed carefully at his face, drying it. “There now,” they said. “I can heal you, if you like. As an apology. I wasn’t expecting that to take you so hard.”

He didn’t feel hurt but he nodded, wanting desperately for them to stop looking at him like something they’d broken. They laid a hand on his head, murmuring something and the spell -- honey gold light and the drone of bees and the taste of wine in his mouth -- broke over him and left him gasping at the echo of the earlier spell.

Ed did feel better, though. Sort of. A different kind of floaty, anyway; warm and heavy instead of far away. He sat up and Tjelvar’s arm fell away from where it had been laying across Ed’s chest. He felt cold right away, and even colder when Tjelvar let his hand go. Ed stood carefully to make sure he was steady and turned in time to see Tjelvar look down and away, scrubbing a hand roughly through his hair. 

The oracle planted their staff firmly and hauled themselves up before Ed could offer them a hand. He reached out to Tjelvar instead, who let Ed pull him up to his feet. Probably Ed should have stepped back as he did it, but the thought came too late and then Tjelvar was standing very close indeed.

Tjelvar didn’t move away either, just looked over Ed carefully, the way Ed had seen him look at a trap or an artifact. “Are you all right?”

Ed thought about it. He felt scrubbed raw all over but less like he might cry if someone said something too loudly. Was it all right to feel like he was watching himself? He didn’t think Tjelvar would like that but it didn’t feel bad exactly. “I don’t know,” he said finally. 

“Fair enough, I suppose.” He hadn’t let go of Ed’s arm. He looked for a moment like he was going to say something else, but shook his head and moved away. “Sleep will help.”

The way back was easier than the trip out had been but if asked, Ed would have had to confess that he didn’t remember most of it. That feeling of watching himself got stronger as they went and it turned out that walking quietly through woods was boring and Ed was terrible at paying attention to boring things. What he did remember was all in pieces: the oracle gesturing with their staff; Tjelvar plucking the ioun torch out of the air and putting it away, which seemed strange but Ed couldn’t figure out why; what he thought was an argument even though he couldn’t make the sounds into words that made sense; Tjelvar frowning at him.

“Right,” Tjelvar said and knelt on the ground, rummaging through his pack. He dug out a small bag, rummaged through that, and pulled out an old stone bead, smooth and round. He glanced up at Ed and Ed would swear that Tjelvar looked nervous, but all Tjelvar said was, “Don’t move, please,” and then he started singing in a language Ed didn’t know at all.

It was only a few seconds long and Ed was distracted by the way the air got very warm and fog came up off the grass beneath them, but when Tjelvar put the bead and bag back in his pack, Ed dropped down to sit next to him and said, delighted, “I knew it.”

“All here now, are you?” asked Tjelvar. He reached for the bedrolls and began to unpack them in short, jerky movements, not looking over. “Good. You should rest.”

“Tjelvar,” Ed said reproachfully. He reached out, wrapping his hands gently around Tjelvar’s wrists. Tjelvar’s hands clenched tight in the blanket he’d been smoothing.

“Edward.”

“You can do magic!” 

Tjelvar sighed and let go the blanket. “Yes, well spotted. That is certainly the thing we should take away from today.”

“It’s dead useful,” Ed said. He slid his hands down to take Tjelvar’s now they weren’t full of cloth with some vague notion of giving Tjelvar something to hold on to. He liked Tjelvar’s hands; they were calloused in different places than Ed’s, finer boned for all that Tjelvar was as tall and almost as broad in the shoulders as he was. 

“I wouldn’t have bothered learning it if it weren’t useful!” Tjelvar took several breaths and his hands shook in the loose grasp of Ed’s. “Edward. Please. Get some rest. It’s been a very trying day.” He looked down for a moment, then pulled his hands free and stood. “I’ll keep watch.”

Ed nodded, not that Tjelvar was looking, and finished setting out both bedrolls before settling into his own. “Will, er. Where’s--”

“I neither know nor care where they are,” said Tjelvar flatly from farther away than Ed liked.

Neither of them had started a fire, but it was warm enough that Ed thought they wouldn’t need one. It looked like Tjelvar was frowning up at the sky, which didn’t make sense, and Ed wondered if the light everywhere was part of the spell or if he’d missed Tjelvar doing more magic somehow. A shame, if true. The singing had been nice and he had a dozen questions. He pulled the blanket over himself and said, “I liked them.”

Tjelvar glanced at him then shrugged. “You like everyone. That’s hardly a recommendation.” He sounded like he was trying very hard to sound lighter, more normal. 

“I like you,” Ed pointed out. 

Tjelvar let out a long breath and sat down where he was, his shoulders hunched and his knees drawn up. He reminded Ed of a hedgehog, all spines unless you knew the trick of it or he liked you, not that Ed would ever tell him so. “As I said.”

Ed closed his eyes, smiling.

* * *

He’s back in the field. The morningstar is solid in his hand and the snake wrapped around his arm hisses when he moves it.

Ed looks down at himself. Still barefoot and bare-legged. 

“What am I supposed to do with all this?” he asks. A road stretches out ahead of him, the cracked and broken stone he remembers from Rome. “Well all right, that’s obvious enough.”

He starts to walk.

* * *

Somewhere nearby, Tjelver was talking. It was his story voice, the one he fell into when he pulled together all the bits and pieces he’d collected from reading and vases and things and made them all fit together with words. He sounded rough, like he’d been talking a long time without stopping.

“‘His skill was in vain; the wound was past all cure. And as, when in a garden violets or tawny tongued lilies or poppies proud are bruised--’”

“Ohhh,” said Ed, opening his eyes as he recognized the lines. One of the clerics in London had read it to him after a bad day in the healing parts of the temple. Ed had liked the beginning bits and the flowers tremendously but the rest of it was sad. And he thought the cleric had gotten into trouble over it because of telling him that Apollo couldn’t fix everything. “They don’t like that one.”

Tjelvar snorted. “Of course they don’t like that one. It makes your Apollo out to be a tit.” 

Ed sat up, head swimming. Tjelvar was a few feet away, poking at something in a pan. The sun was already up and had been for a while it looked like. The bedrolls were far away, one of them clearly not slept in and the other a mess. “Why am I here?” he asked. He didn’t remember getting up.

“You started walking in your sleep,” Tjelvar said. “I stopped you from leaving.”

And had taken Ed’s breastplate and coat off and covered him with a blanket. Ed forgot sometimes. He’d always been good at sleeping, but he’d gotten much better at it since Rome, when he’d learned to sleep in full armor with a weapon in hand while crammed into whatever shelter he could find. He wasn’t sure how he’d slept through all that, but he was willing to believe it. 

He’d also learned to wake up from a dead sleep ready to fight. “Er. I didn’t hit you, did I?”

Tjelvar did look at him then. He looked tired and his face was tight with something, irritation probably, especially if he hadn’t had any tea yet, but it softened a little at Ed’s worry. “No. You were...quite biddable.”

Ed squinted at him.

“Not like an auction, Edward. You seemed happy to do as I asked.” Tjelvar handed him a plate piled with what Ed thought were probably supposed to be some kind of oat cake and a mug. Ed took a sip, grimaced, and Tjelvar handed him the sugar with a roll of his dark eyes before sitting down himself. 

Tjelvar scowled at his food, poking irritably at it and drinking the oversteeped and bitter tea without looking like he even tasted it. He probably didn’t; as near as Ed could tell, Tjelvar would eat anything put in front of him with the same efficiency and lack of care as anything else. If Ed wanted something actually worth eating, he had to make it himself and usually did for the both of them. 

It was familiar and solid and real, something like the way a good healing felt, when everything worked the way it should instead of feeling sore and heavy. The sun streamed down through the barrier Tjelvar had put up and washes of color slid over the surface like a soap bubble and those things were good too. 

Tjelvar cleared his throat. “Do you know where the curse is?”

Ed pointed without thinking about it, the knowledge just there in his head waiting for someone to ask. 

“Hmm.” Tjeljvar looked in that direction but Ed didn’t think he was actually looking at anything, just thinking. “That’s the way you were headed.”

Ed rubbed his forehead where he could feel a headache starting. “That’s where we should go,” he said. For a second, clear as anything, he saw the field and the road and felt the weight of his morningstar in his hand again. He blinked and it was gone. “There was a road?”

Tjelvar set aside his plate, still mostly full and Ed had to fight the urge to hand it back to him and make sure he ate. “A road,” he said. He looked at Ed and his face was tense and unhappy. “And you’re sure you’re fine? All...here?”

“Where else would I be?” Ed asked. And then, in the interest of being as truthful as possible, he added, “My head hurts some. And it feels...light? You know. Like on a boat.” Ed took a bite of the food Tjelvar had made. It was a very large bite and it was a mistake for so many reasons, but it meant that he could say with some amount of honesty, “Some food’ll do me right up.” He felt more there already. It was impossible not to.

Tjelvar snorted but looked less upset which Ed counted as a victory.

Ed finished everything on his plate and what was left on Tjelvar’s abandoned one while Tjelvar repacked their bags. Ed did feel better after. He definitely wasn’t hungry anyway.

“Do you need to, you know,” and Tjelvar pointed up at the sun, “before we leave?”

“Oh! Yeah. Yeah. I should do that.” Ed stood and then stopped. “Will you be all right?”

“You’re going to be praying. I hardly think I’m in any danger from that.” Tjelvar gave him a quick half smile that didn’t make it to his eyes before he pulled over his quiver and longbow to check over everything. If anything, that made Ed worry more. He looked up at Ed. “I’ll be happier when this is all done and we can leave.”

That at least sounded true. Ed nodded and found himself a patch of sun-warmed grass and got to praying.

* * *

There’s a moment on the road when everything goes very strange and the world gets very large or maybe it’s just that Ed is very small in it. And for that moment, Ed sees lots of roads, as many of them as there are stars - paved with stones and dirt and matted down grass and everything in between - and there are people on all of them and he can’t make it all fit however much he wants to, it’s too much, too big--

He’s on his knees. The road is hard and there are all these little rocks and it hurts, but far away as if it’s happening to someone else. When he blinks, he can see the other roads again for just a second before they’re gone and he wonders about the people on them. 

He stands up carefully. He feels very, very much like he’s standing in water that goes up to his head. It’s bright and the kind of warm that doesn’t feel like anything against his skin and he _knows_ it. He asks for it every day and every time he wants to help someone but this is loads more than he’s ever wanted or asked for. 

He starts walking again. Mostly it’s all right if he’s careful but every now and then it gets to be too much and it closes over him, golden and endless and inexorable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Three things: I am terrible at estimating ending length; This keeps expanding beyond what I expect; i have to rewrite the end of this one so it fits within the entirely arbitrary boundaries of pathfinder rules I've set myself.
> 
> Tjelvar is quoting from Ovid's Metamorphosis, specifically the tale of Apollo and Hyacinthus, For Reasons.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which some doors are opened.

He stumbles and there are two roads, one on top of the other. Cracked stone lies on top of something barely a trail, leaf strewn and uneven over roots that broke the ground in front of them. 

Something tightens around his arm and he looks down at the snake wound around it, gray and black, tongue flickering. _Here_ , it says. _Not alone_. 

“I didn’t know snakes could talk,” Ed mumbled. He blinked and there was just a trail beneath his feet and he’d caught himself up on one of the roots. Tjelvar had him by the arm, holding tightly and stopping Ed from falling flat on his face.

“Edward,” Tjelvar said. When he wanted to, Tjelvar could pour a whole body’s worth of feeling into a word and he did it then, somehow managing to say Ed’s name in a way that suggested terror and relief had had a proper fight and neither of them had come out the winner. He was frowning again too and Ed only just stopped himself from touching Tjelvar’s mouth. He should smile more, Ed thought. I should help.

“M’fine.” Ed stood up and rubbed at his eyes, trying to make the second road stop floating in front of his eyes whenever he blinked. “What--”

Apollo’s power filled Ed up like it had...wherever that was, on that road, and drew everything in sharp, bright edges, picking out the way Tjelvar’s hair was growing out every which way in blue-black waves and curls from where he’d cut it brutally short in Cairo and gilding the bow shoved into the quiver on his back and the breastplate he was carrying. A litany of questions Ed hadn’t asked were provided answers he hadn’t earned: that Tjelvar was afraid that Ed wasn’t going to come back one day; that the longbow was dead good and magic besides; that there was something like a wound in him that Ed couldn’t just pour all this borrowed power into and fix; that Tjelvar wanted a beer a bath to lift this _fucking_ curse to take Ed somewhere where he’d be safe for Ed to stop glowing a smile a sweep of sky all lit up a city on a bear--

_oh, please no,_ Ed thought. He wanted to learn those things, to know them because he’d tried and succeeded and shared them, because he’d asked and been answered by a person and not a god. He didn’t want to cheat.

He definitely wanted to talk about the bear.

The flood of information receded the tiniest bit, enough to breathe through. 

The frown on Tjelvar’s face eased and he looked relieved, if exhausted, and Ed looked around, trying to figure out what was going on without asking. 

They weren’t where they had been. Ed thought that he should be worried about that maybe since it had been happening an awful lot, but the thought felt like it was being wrapped up carefully and put aside, furniture he didn’t need relegated to the attic and forgotten.

“I’m sorry,” he said first, spurred on by the lingering fear -- not his, it couldn’t be his, there’d been training and he’d handed them over in trust, laid his fears on Apollo’s altar as part of his oaths with the promise he wouldn’t have to feel that anymore, but he remembered how it felt from Rome and before -- and then, “hello, Tjelvar.”

One side of Tjelvar’s mouth lifted in a half smile. It went away too soon and he was back to looking tired and worried. “Hello, Ed.” 

He looked Ed over carefully and, apparently satisfied that everything was as all right as it was going to be, set his pack and quiver down and grabbed Ed’s breastplate and coat. Tjelvar looked determined under all the tiredness, like he’d figured out some puzzle that had been bothering him and was ready to do something about it. He slid a hand under one of the straps of Ed’s pack and helped Ed shrug it off. “Apollo’s doing well, I suppose?”

“Oh.” said Ed. It wasn’t what he’d been expecting to talk about and he turned his head to keep Tjelvar in view as he circled around to take Ed’s pack. “I didn’t ask. Should I have?” He knew all the official prayers, obviously. He’d said them over and over again until they’d fixed in his memory and he could rattle them off as good as anyone in the London temple. He’d stopped doing them in Rome, when he hadn’t gotten an answer, and stopped again when he’d run away in Cairo. It hadn’t seemed right to use them when he wasn’t officially a paladin anymore. Those hadn’t asked Apollo how he was doing and it hadn’t occurred to Ed that maybe that would be nice. Would it be nice? Ed liked it when people asked after him instead of just wanting things. He thought maybe he’d try it next time. 

Tjelvar held up the buff coat for Ed to put on. Confused, Ed obliged him. “I think that if Apollo were in a bad way, you’d know.”

It wasn’t actually necessary for anyone to help with the armor. Ed knew this because he usually put everything on in the morning by himself while Tjelvar was sleeping. Ed knew that Tjelvar knew this because he’d watched Ed do it on the mornings he couldn’t stay asleep. None of that stopped Tjelvar from brushing Ed’s hands away while he did up the buttons on the coat. None of that stopped Ed from letting him. 

“What’s going on?” Ed asked finally. Tjelvar was standing very close and his hands were--Tjelvar was _helping_. No one had helped Ed with his armor since he’d first gotten some at the temple. And it was Tjelvar, who’d saved him and fought with him and bought him potions for what reason Ed still didn’t know but did know it was meant as a kindness and told him stories about Apollo he hadn’t heard before. He’d had any number of chances to go and he hadn’t.

It wasn’t even that Tjelvar was taking his time with the buttons or doing anything untoward. He wasn’t _flirting_ or nothing, or if he was, it wasn’t anything like courtship the way Ed understood it. He was just right there like he’d been the whole time, close enough that Ed could feel the warmth of him. 

There was a tangle of feelings inside him, where the bubbling swirl of Apollo’s power was still pouring things into his mind, regret and desire and fondness and fear and something that just wanted and wanted and of all of those things, the only one Ed could tell for certain wasn’t his was the fear. 

“You were praying and I have to assume whatever you were praying for was granted, because there was a great deal of light and you started to walk away the way you did last night. You stopped when I asked, but I didn’t want to risk losing you, so I packed us up and here we are.” Tjelvar nudged Ed’s chin up to get to the little buttons on the collar. “Breathe,” he said and Ed let out the breath he’d been holding. He smoothed his hands over Ed’s shoulders, making sure everything lay flat and perfect before tossing a whacking great piece of armor on top. “Given the circumstances, I’d rather you were in something more substantial than a shirt and trousers. All right?”

Ed nodded. He was sure about this -- about himself, anyway, and as sure as Ed ever was about what other people were thinking, even with Apollo helping -- and he wasn’t exactly inexperienced with all the physical parts of it, what with paladins being like they were. And Tjelvar hadn’t been wrong to say that Ed liked people, he did like them, they were well interesting, but mostly they didn’t like him back after a few hours or so and that was fine; he’d had years and years to get used to that.

Tjelvar wasn’t people anymore, though; he was Tjelvar and that fit differently into Ed’s head.

Ed did know what wanting someone felt like, even if it was rare enough that he did and it took him longer than most to figure out that’s what all the fuss was about.

The thing was, Ed wanted very much for Tjelvar to keep looking at him like he was now, focused and fond, but maybe not the tired bit. And the other thing was that Ed wanted to keep making breakfast and following Tjelvar into old places full of interesting things and for Tjelvar to keep helping him figure out what evil needed smiting and he wanted to know what Tjelvar’d been singing and he wanted to know whatever stories Tjelvar knew that the cults didn’t share. The other, other thing was: he didn’t think he was supposed to want anything that much except maybe Apollo and making the world better. 

Tjelvar lifted the breastplate and slid it around Ed’s shoulders, moving to his side and starting in on the buckles. Apollo’s power didn’t flicker, not once, and neither did the warm steady feeling that came with it, not even when Ed turned his head to keep looking at Tjelvar. So maybe that last part was fine as long as he kept all his oaths.

Ed shifted his balance a little, just enough that his shoulder bumped up against Tjelvar who stopped fiddling with the buckle there to glance back up at his face. Whatever he saw there made Tjelvar close his eyes and breathe out a long, ragged breath. “Ed.”

“What? I’m just.” Words failed Ed then, because while saying he was just looking might be technically true, it wasn’t _really_ true, and that kind of thing mattered. He looked mutely at Tjelvar, trying his best to get across the formless greedy want for more of whatever Tjelvar wanted to give him. And if he had it all already, that was fine too so long as Tjelvar stayed.

Tjelvar’s hand curled around the back of Ed’s neck and Ed followed the gentle pressure of it until his forehead rested against Tjelvar’s. Ed reached up to hold on to Tjelvar’s arm and felt something that had been tied up in knots inside himself forever start to relax.

“Right,” said Tjelvar after a not long enough moment. He cleared his throat but didn’t move. “Yes. We should--”

“Yeah,” said Ed, who had no intention of moving first. 

Apollo’s power spilled over again and in the soft gold wash of it, Tjelvar sighed, some of the tiredness gone from his face. It echoed back like it usually did, catching Ed in the return. It brought with it a cold, tense knot of not quite fear -- about Ed? About Apollo? he couldn’t tell -- that settled in his stomach. Not his at all, he thought. No wonder Tjelvar hardly ever ate if he felt like this all the time. 

Tjelvar squeezed the back of Ed’s neck and straightened up. 

Ed held on to his arm another moment. “We’ll be all right, Tjelvar, I promise.”

Tjelvar’s face did a funny thing then that Ed didn’t understand. Some of it he liked -- he always liked it when Tjelvar smiled at him -- and some of it he didn’t, like the way Tjelvar shook his head, settling back into the determined look he’d had before. He didn’t say anything though, just went back to finishing with the buckle on Ed’s shoulder before starting in on the ones along his side.

“I take it we’re at the epicenter of all this,” he said. He pulled the strap through the buckle at Ed’s ribs and the breastplate closed in around Ed like he liked. “Given your return to yourself.”

Ed looked around. They were in a clearing ringed with the stumps of seven cut down trees. They were blackened on the side that faced the clearing. Everything around it looked a bit smaller than it should have, but that could have been new trees growing and not anything bad. He could see smoke rising from the town not too far off. Nothing about it looked cursed but now he was paying attention to what was around him, Ed’s skin was starting prickle like it had in the Meier house. “I think so,” he said. 

Tjelvar’s hands moved down to Ed’s waist and cinched the last bit of the breastplate closed. He took a few steps back, looking over his handiwork and Ed fought the urge to close the distance. Tjelvar wasn’t going away. He wasn’t sending Ed away. There was time. 

“So what do we do next?” Tjelvar asked. 

“Erm.” Ed scratched the back of his head. “Right. So. I know how to remove a curse, I think.”

“You think,” said Tjelvar. 

“I haven’t done it since training,” Ed said in a rush. “And those were small curses, right? Someone having a go at his sister by making her tell the truth. Nothing like this.”

“Edward.” Tjelvar rubbed at his forehead. “Have you ever removed a curse on your own?”

“Alone? Not as such, no. That’s advanced paladin-ing. I always thought it was just, you know. Find the curse and do a bit of praying and bang, done.” Tjelvar moved over to one of the stumps and brushed the top off, moving to sit. Prompted by...something, Ed said, “No, don’t.”

Tjelvar stopped. “Is it evil?” he asked. 

Ed couldn’t tell if he was being serious but checked anyway. It wasn’t. It just wasn’t right either. He shook his head, half expecting Tjelvar to sit down anyway.

He didn’t. He just looked around at the ring of tree stumps suspiciously and moved back to stand next to Ed. Finally, like it had been dragged out of him, he said, “I’ve never tried lifting a curse like this either.”

“You know how, though?”

Tjelvar opened his mouth, then shut it again, pressing his lips together tightly before he nodded. Ed looked at him hopefully and Tjelvar let out a long breath. “Yes, all right.”

He held out his hand and Ed took it, thought a moment, then withdrew. Tjelvar’s eyebrows went up and Ed took a deep breath. “What are we doing and is it going to hurt?”

Tjelvar looked confused but dropped his hand. “Either I’m going to cast the spell for you or nothing at all. And it shouldn’t hurt you, no.” As he spoke, the confusion cleared and he started to smile at Ed, a real full one like he mostly didn’t do. 

Ed grinned back at him. “Details. I remembered.”

Still smiling, Tjelvar said, “I’m not actually certain what will happen. It should create a channel of some kind between us and I suppose we’ll figure it out from there. The worst case scenario is that nothing happens at all and you pray for some kind of help.”

That didn’t sound terrible to Ed so he held out his hand and Tjelvar took it. He said something sharpish, Latin maybe, and Ed had a moment to wonder why it wasn’t singing like the other one had been before he’s standing in front of a door and opens it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Flagrantly misused spells in this chapter include: detect anxieties, detect desires, sunlight, channel the gift (I guarantee this one is almost the reverse of how it reads but you know? I'm okay with that), and remove curse. Not flagrantly misused: one instance of lay on hands + mercy.
> 
> Probably deeply overthought paladin concepts: "a paladin is immune to fear (magical or otherwise)." Oh, are they _really_?


End file.
